Sweet Season

My favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder book has always been Little House in the Big Woods.  Two chapters that are back to back, Sugar Snow and Dance at Grandpa's, describe what it was like in the 1800's to produce maple syrup and the fun and work that the Ingalls' family experienced.  Charles Ingalls' father tapped trees, emptied his wooden buckets into a big wooden barrel which his oxen pulled to the huge iron kettle where he boiled the sap.  It was a tricky job to have the fire just right so that the sap did not boil over.

When Laura's grandma and grandpa had a dance to celebrate the syrup harvest, Grandma worked in the kitchen doing a final boil of the syrup while Pa played the fiddle and the neighbors danced.  When the syrup was just the right consistency everyone grabbed plates and filled them with fresh snow. Then Laura's grandma poured syrup over the snow and it turned into chewy maple candy.  The children ate the candy that probably was taffy like until they couldn't eat anymore.  Laura wrote, "They could eat all they wanted, for maple sugar never hurt anybody."

It was with all that in mind that I set out to find the sweetness of the season this last Sunday in March.  Three trees were tapped behind our son and daughter-in-law's house and the sap was boiling in a copper kettle over a wood fire.  As I wandered down the road I saw my three grandchildren out and about enjoying the sunshine that was finally warming the air.  Avery had a hatchet tied to a rope and was using it to climb the banks of snow like a mountain climber.  Jay had a hoe and Carter was along for the fun of the adventure.  They decided they were going to climb a hill near the old barn and use their tools to get to the top.  Their dog Penny was having a good time chasing them around.                                                                                      

I walked up the driveway to check on the sap boil.  Steam was rolling off the top of the copper kettle and the fire was burning nicely.  It was all unattended.  On the knoll behind the house three white buckets were attached to the trees.  Pure clear sap was running out of the spigots at a nice pace.                                                                       

The children returned from their adventure pushing a huge chunk of ice they found in an old well near the pond.  I told them I didn't like them playing by the well, but I had to admit the chunk of ice was beautiful and looked like a round glass window.  

Avery told me that the taste of sap running from the trees was like water with a sweet after taste.  Carter showed me how he took a drink from the spigot. When I mentioned he was getting germs in the sap he said, "It doesn't matter grandma.  The germs will disappear when it's boiled."

The snow piles are still high for so late in March, but it is not what Laura's Pa called sugar snow.  Pa was referring to a snowfall they got after most of the winter snow had melted.  He said, "It's called sugar snow, because this time of year means that men can make more sugar.  You see, this little cold spell and the snow will hold back the leafing of the trees, and that makes a longer run of sap."

The run of sap will probably go into April this year in Michigan.  Most of us are looking forward to a string of 50-60 degree days, but that will bring the sap run to an end.  However daffodils are a glorious sight by the pond and the sweetness of the spring season will continue in other ways. 

March Madness Memory

Eighth grade was a confusing time for me.  I had turned thirteen that year and boys were becoming more intriguing.  I had liked the same boy from kindergarten on, but he had never paid too much attention to me.

We had a group class picture taken in sixth grade.  I was sitting next to said boy in my red plaid dress laughing at something funny he had done just as the camera was clicked.  So for posterity I am sitting there with a big grin on my face and closed eyes.  I might add, I was the only person in the class picture with their eyes closed.

"Mom, can I have a party?" I asked in my eighth grade year.  It was March and I wanted some of the boys in my class to come to my house.  I wanted girls too, but it was more about the boys.

We lived one half mile north of Shelby, so some of the boys I invited walked to my house. My mother had agreed to make sloppy joes and the premise of the party was to watch one game of the state high school basketball finals on TV.  I have no idea who was playing and it probably was one of the earliest years it was televised.

Television at our house was also a relatively new thing.  I was around eleven when I came home from school one day to find we had our first TV.  My sister and I had previously gone to the neighbors whenever we could to watch the Mickey Mouse Club.  

My father had installed an antenna and it was one of the most exciting days of my life up to that point.  The other remarkable thing was my dad had also bought a case of grape pop the same day he hooked up our TV.  Pop was a once in a blue moon sort of thing at our house so this was over the top excitement.  A new TV and grape pop.

The anticipation on my party day was at a high level.  I don't remember who I invited, but I can imagine that the boys might have been Paul, Gary, Rick, Jay and Jack.  I am drawing a blank on the girls except my best friend Jean must have been there.  

After eating and then watching a bit of the game, the boys started getting restless and loud.  That made me a little nervous.  My party seemed to be flopping. On a whim we all went outside.  The weather was warm and I found a kite.  The rest of the party time was spent running and trying to get the kite in the air.

Thinking back on that day I realize we were very innocent thirteen year olds who were balanced precariously between childhood and our teen years.  I know I wanted a bit more time to be twelve when I wasn't expected to want to kiss and hold hands.  Flirting was yet to be totally learned and embraced. Kite flying would all too soon be a thing of the past.

March madness which overtakes a great deal of our nation's population this time of year brought back this memory of a party that would end my childhood and propel me into a new passage of my life...the high school years.  But that is a story for another time.  

What's on your bookshelf?

Antique collection

My love of books started on my mother's lap.  It isn't the stories I remember nor my mother's voice, but her hands as she turned the pages. We sat together on an old rocking chair and I loved that time when it was just my mother and me.

When we were children my mother took my brother, sister and me to the library every two weeks.  We walked up some creaky stairs to the library, which in the late 40's and early 50's, was on the second floor of a building in downtown Shelby.  We were able to pick out several books and I remember one time when just my sister and I were at the library with my mother.  When Nancy and I looked up at the librarian and gave her our books to be stamped she said, "You two have the most beautiful eyes."  Who wouldn't love to go to the library when we were told that?

My love of books continued into grade school.  I was fond of the biographies of famous people that lined the bookshelves in fourth and fifth grades.  My favorite was one about Jane Addams.  I wanted to be Jane Addams.  Jane lived from 1860 to 1935 and became the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and is known as the founder of the social work profession in the U.S.  Jane established Hull House in Chicago where she made social services available to immigrant women of the neighborhood.  I was fascinated by her story and for many years thought I would follow her path.  In many ways, my teaching career had elements of social work.

Books from my childhood became pathways for our own children beyond the stories.  The Laura Ingalls Wilder series took us during summer breaks to Walnut Grove, Minnesota (On the Banks of Plum Creek), DeSmet, South Dakota (Little House on the Prairie, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie), and Mansfield, Missouri (These Happy Golden Years).

I just finished rereading The Long Winter in order to compare our winter with the dangerous winter the Wilders experienced on the prairie.  Laura was writing for children and never sensationalized what happened to her family, but The Long Winter shows how close they came to starving to death.  For months they had nothing but brown bread and tea to eat each day.  They were forced to twist hay for heat and grind wheat for bread and the effort of that daily routine took more energy than they really had.  When the train stopped running before Christmas and didn't come again until the last day of April because of unending blizzards, their supplies quickly ran out and they had no meat nor vegetables.  It made me realize that complaining this winter about the cold and snow shows the average American knows nothing about a tough life, me included.

A book that took us on a long road trip across Canada to Prince Edward Island was Anne of Green Gables.  The island was delightful but we also drove up Cape Breton and toured Fortress Louisbourg at the northeast end of the island.  Unlike PEI, there was a bridge crossing over to Cape Breton Island. We came back to Nova Scotia and circled Halifax to go to Peggy's Cove, a small picturesque fishing village on the Atlantic.  That trip was more than just experiencing Anne of Green Gables. It was broadening our horizons to see that there were different landscapes and jobs that people had. We also learned about the unusual high tides of the Bay of Fundy, which separates Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

After finishing a good book I have been immersed in for days, I always have a sense of loss.  I miss the characters and the apprehension of where the story will take me.  Such was the case of a recent read, The Goldfinch, a novel by Donna Tartt.  It was a rather tough story with dysfunctional characters.  Even though it had a somewhat satisfying ending, it was complicated as the main character explained his view of life. This was Donna Tartt's third novel.  I was so intrigued by this book that I am now reading her first novel, The Secret History, and discovering that her characters in this book also have complicated problems.  I keep turning the pages.

Books overfloweth at our house.  My husband favors history.  My half of the bookshelves contain poetry, fiction, travel books and my journals.  We have shelves of children's books that we bought for our own children and grandchildren.  We have bookcases in our den, a big bookcase in our family room and I have books tucked here and there in piles in out of the way places. That does not count all the novels in boxes stored away.  Their value is in the pleasure or pain the words have brought me over the years.  They will all eventually go into someone else's collection, but I hope never discarded. Holding a book is like having a little world in my hands to explore at my leisure.  What's on your bookshelf?  I'd love to know.

 BOOKS, BOOKS AND MORE BOOKS!

Overstuffed bookcase in den

Books read this winter

Book case in family room

March Mischief

Rivulets of water
Running under edges of ice
To latte mud puddles
Sucking in boots

Sap coursing through
Branches and trunks
On a forty six degree day
Sweetness in the air

After a wink and a nod
From mother nature
The night will freeze
Into tomorrow's cold

Next week will bring
Fifty degree days
Fingers crossed
No looking back

Winter Interlude

Heads bent over
Steaming cups
Of coffee
A joke
A reminiscence

Secrets spilling
From the gut
Knowing there
Is trust in the
Confiding

A break from
The chill 
Of winter
Totally relaxed
Settling into an
Hour or two
Of just being
Themselves  

               -Joan Ramseyer